“If we can be fearless, and be with our pain, it turns. It doesn’t stay static. It only doesn’t change if we refuse to look at it. When we look at it, when we take it in our hands, when we can just be with it and keep breathing, then it turns. It turns to reveal its other face. And the other face of our pain is our love for the world, our absolutely inseparable connectedness with all life.” – Joanna Macy
This was my whole last year. I hope I never have to do it again. Just kidding. THIS IS LIFE’S GREATEST LESSON. I talk often about our shadow selves, the parts we wish didn’t exist, that we don’t want anyone to know about. Personifying those helps us work with our shadow. I often personify feelings, grief, pain, anguish, anxiety. I imagine that they live in me and I write them letters. I ask about what they are teaching me and pointing me towards. Each of these things, that we don’t want to feel, is pointing towards our greatest loves, our greatest gifts to the world, our connectedness to life. If we can learn to be with, we can learn to keep moving towards what is around the bend. The joy of this, for me, is that if we can learn to be with our pain, we can learn to be with another’s. We can stop being afraid of pain and grief and joy, and be fully with one another.
To learning to be with the pain and letting it turn.
XO,
JESS
These Soulful Sunday blogs go out weekly on Sundays to be used as a place to step back from the hustle and bustle and explore what your soul might be saying to you. Some folks use these as journal prompts and let loose amidst pages. Some folks bring them to the kitchen table and jam over coffee. Do you, boo.
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